KINGA PASTUSZAK, PSY.D.
LICENSED CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST
TREATMENT APPROACH
I am a seasoned clinician that is well-versed in a variety of therapeutic approaches from which I draw either exclusively, or in concert. This offers each person I work with an approach that is individually tailored to your unique goals, needs, and challenges.
I value a collaborative approach. Each of us brings an expertise to the work. As a clinician, I bring expertise in psychological theories and applied practice, while you bring expertise on your history, life experiences, values, goals, and hopes for the future. Together, we work to enhance your lived experience.
Some of the theoretical approaches I utilize include:
Psychodynamic Psychotherapy
This therapy is analytic in nature and helps us to understand how our current thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are impacted by our past experiences, both those that we readily recall, as well as those that may be outside of our awareness. We reflect on how early patterns of interaction, thought, feeling impact on us today. Contrary to common belief, psychodynamic psychotherapy it is not simply ‘about the past’ and it is not limited to ‘just insight’. It offers powerful tools to help us understand ourselves today, as well as the influencing factors that may be keeping us from living our lives optimally. It’s goal is to alleviate psychic tension so as to free us to move towards fulfillment in the areas of love, work, and play.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
CBT focuses on the interaction of our thoughts (cognitions), behaviors, feelings, and physiological symptoms. Because all these experiences are interconnected and affect one another, the ‘start point’ of therapy can focus on any one of these experiences. Change is facilitated by opportunities to practice new ways of thinking, which allow for alternate experiences. It’s goal is to allow us to live fuller lives by increasing the accuracy of our beliefs and by mitigating negative emotions and/or ineffective behaviors stemming from inaccurate appraisals of ourselves.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
DBT, a modification of CBT, was originally found to be highly effective in helping individuals diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, as well as those who struggle with chronic self-harm and the wish to no longer be alive. In the decades since it’s introduction, the techniques of DBT have been found to be highly effective in helping, well, anyone.
DBT balances validating and genuinely accepting our present experiences, with simultaneously working towards changing them. This means instead of “fighting” with distressing thoughts, feelings, behaviors, we work to accept their place in our experience, and to understand how they may be serving us in some way. So behaviors, thoughts, feelings become neither “good” nor “bad”, they simply “are”. This shift decreases our suffering and facilitates the process of change. In other words, DBT helps us to acknowledge that we are doing the best we can, to identify what is working for us and to do more of it, and to identify what is not working for us, and to let it go.
DBT also offers honing skill-sets in the areas of mindfulness/awareness (we can’t improve on what we are not aware of), interpersonal effectiveness (asking for what we need, setting limits, saying ‘no’, maintaining our self-respect), emotion regulation (utilizing our emotions to our benefit, rather than to our detriment), as well as tolerating distress (finding ways to effectively cope in situations outside of our control, without inadvertently making things worse for ourselves).
I provide DBT treatment in its traditional form (which involves individual therapy, group skills training, and skills paging), and also draw from DBT to supplement other treatment modalities.
Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT)
ACT therapy involves working towards genuinely accepting what is beyond our control (acceptance), while simultaneously making a commitment to act in ways that improves and enriches our lives (commitment). The process involves increasing awareness of painful thoughts and feelings, and learning to navigate them in ways that result in a decrease in their impact and influence on us. It also involves clarifying values and using this information to guide, inspire, and motivate change for the better. It’s goal is to maximize the potential for a rich, full and meaningful life.
Positive Psychology
Unlike most traditional therapies where the focus is on identifying the problem, Positive Psychology focuses on our qualities and strengths that enable us to thrive and lead meaningful and fulfilling lives. It focuses on the identification, use, and enhancement of positive emotions (contentment with past, happiness in present, hope for future), individual traits (capacity for love and work, courage, compassion, resilience, creativity, curiosity, integrity, self-knowledge, moderation, self-control, wisdom), as well as positive institutions (justice, responsibility, civility, nurturance, work ethic, leadership, teamwork, purpose, tolerance). It’s goal is to cultivate what is best within us and to enhance our lived experiences.
And…
I also have a strong appreciation for the use of humor as a therapeutic tool. Any long, hard look at ourselves deserves to come with a dose of levity. Otherwise, life would feel even more challenging than it already does, and we don’t need to make things harder on ourselves ☺
